“Meet Me in St. Louis” is one of my favorite all time movies, especially at Christmas. Enjoy the beautiful voice of Judy Garland in “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”
I remember my Aunt Linda visiting us in Palm Springs when my son was around four years old. He asked her to watch a movie with him. She was so surprised that it was “Meet Me in St. Louis” and thrilled it wasn’t Barney!
Merry Christmas!
The Frango Mints have arrived! This is my work station in the casita. If you haven’t had a Frango Mint, you’re missing out.
I wrote about Frango Mints last year about this time HERE.
Every year for Christmas and Hanukkah, I mail out Frangos to my husband’s clients. They are a traditional holiday gift in Washington, my home state, where they were first made for Frederick & Nelson’s, a wonderful department store that no long exists.
I keep my postal workers in mind and follow their suggestions of when the best days and hours are to stop at the Carefree post office with my stacks of Frangos. It’s a tiny place and only one or two postal workers are on duty at any time. The people in Carefree who wait patiently in line behind me are so kind and nobody gets upset. I had a very different experience living in Palm Springs which I describe in last year’s story (link above). I also give Frangos to the postal workers. I notice they get showered with gifts each Christmas season.
The history of Frangos is printed on the back of the box.
I hope to get everything done and mailed in one week. After that I’ll be traveling to see my dad who was in the hospital totally out of it and incoherent for a few days. Now he’s in skilled nursing care and thriving. He’s alert, doing PT and eating well. It’s time to make some choices for his future. He may be choosing to enter assisted living at the same place where he’s in skilled nursing. He’s been living on his own, but he’s turning 94 in January. Yes, he does need more care than he needed the past few years.
What traditions do you have for the holidays? Any special foods, treats or movies?
This is my office which has been taken over with stuff from our closets. The painting is of our Palm Springs backyard.
Yesterday, we were getting new carpet installed in our guest room and casita. We went through Costco because a neighbor recommended them. First, you have Costco’s backing if you aren’t satisfied or something goes wrong. Second, you get a percentage back from Costco on a gift card.
We had a salesperson come to the house with samples. We selected what we wanted, signed a contract and paid. The salesperson did measurements with an electronic device. He said I needed to empty out the closets and remove little things, but they would do the heavy lifting of beds and dressers.
We decided to replace the carpets after Christmas. My son is very allergic to cats and even though I raked the carpets to get rid of Olive’s hair (yes, there is such a thing as a pet rake) and I had the carpets professionally cleaned, my son couldn’t breathe. His doctor told him to leave or go to the ER. Not a great Christmas memory.
I’m sad to lose Olive and I miss her every day. She loved to hibernate in the daytime under the beds in the casita and guest room. Hence the cat dander.
We have a friend who is a retired pulmonary physician. He said cat dander can last in carpet up to three years. There’s no getting rid of it.
We had no carpet in our Palm Springs home. We replaced the carpet in our kids’ bedrooms with hardwood floors because of the allergy issue.
I can’t believe how much STUFF I had crammed into two closets. Now that it’s all out in public view in my office, I think it’s the perfect opportunity to go through it all. We are having guests for a week starting Sunday. What a great time to empty out the closets and have new carpet.
In those closets I had Christmas ornaments, gift wrap, and giant jugs to purify water from our pool in case of an emergency. Also, a sewing machine and fabric. And lots and lots of photo albums. Where will I put these things now? That’s the question.
What oddball things do you have stored in a spare closet?
To get into the Christmas spirit this year, I downloaded a religious app on my phone. On my walks I listen to a Bible in a Year podcast and an Advent Challenge.
In the Advent Challenge, some of the days end with a prayer which is more like a meditation.
It’s called the Litany of Let Love.
Have a wonderful holiday this week and enjoy the Litany of Let Love:
I’m thrilled when cardinals come to visit. I took this photo with my camera through the window.
I’m getting ready for Christmas and was thinking about the games we used to play when I was a kid. Our family was big on games and I found them mostly boring. When I was young, I went along and played. When I hit my teens, I no longer wanted to and said no thanks.
We played board games like Monopoly, Life and Clue. My brother and I played a military strategy game called Stratego.
My parents were into cards. They hosted Pinochle and Bridge nights. I’ll never forget the card table that would come out of the closet, legs unfolded and stood in the center of our small living room in our first house.
We played Gin Rummy, Knock Rummy, Demon and Poker as a family. When we moved to our new home in the countryside, the game table, a round one that was permanent, was placed next to a window seat in the corner of the living room with huge windows. I soon realized that I could peak at people’s cards in the reflection of the windows at night.
With my kids and DIL coming for Christmas, I’d like to play a few games. I’ve got Catch Phrase, the electronic hand held game where two teams try to guess phrases through clues and gestures. It’s very much like Charades, but the electronic device gives players a choice of categories and then the word or phrase. The kids played Catch Phrase for hours at swim meets.
I also bought a few decks of cards. My daughter and I like to play Demon which is a fast-paced double solitaire type of fun.
Our family played Poker when the kids were still living at home. Our favorite game was Texas Hold’em. Before kids, my husband and I played two board games — Pente and Trivial Pursuit. Those are tucked away in the closet and may need to be dusted off. My son said he’s not sure our Trivial Suit cards from the 1980s or 1990s will be fair. I say why not?
Do you enjoy playing games with family and friends? What games did you play growing up? What games do you play now?
The cardinal visited my AI bird feeder, Bird Buddy, after I took my own photos.
This is a wreath I made years ago when we lived in Palm Springs. It’s on our front gate. This week, I’m decorating my tree, hanging wreaths and having fun getting ready for my kids and DIL’s visit.
The wreath was placed on our big wooden gates when we lived in Palm Springs.
I noticed a few decorations on my daily walk. Here they are:
I’m not sure if these are mice or polar bears. Any guesses?
I love saguaros with Santa hats.
They look good on Beavergtail cacti too.
I got this Rockin’ Santa from Target in 1999. He’s a joy to bring out each Christmas season. He dances to Brenda Lee’s “Rockin Around the Christmas Tree.”
Our first Christmas in Arizona was about a week after we moved. I didn’t decorate. The next year we rented a house in Santa Barbara for our family. The year after that, we stayed in our old Palm Springs neighborhood. Needless to say, I didn’t put up a tree at home. My Rockin’ Santa was the extent of my decorations, plus the wreath on the gate.
I decided to put up the tree this year because the kids are coming. But I couldn’t find my Christmas box containing our married life of ornaments. I looked high and low. I emptied out the guest room closet. I searched the garage which has nice storage cupboards. I looked everywhere.
It hurt my heart that I no longer had our eclectic collection of ornaments that included ones made by my kids in second, third and fourth grades. I had ornaments given as gifts through the decades from my mom and friends. Nothing matched but it all worked and was special to us.
I was relieved to find our Christmas stockings safely tucked away in my bin of gift wrap. My friend in Santa Barbara made them for us, plus I still have the stocking my grandmother knitted for my first Christmas!
Somehow our Christmas ornaments didn’t make the move from Palm Springs to Arizona. The wreaths were stored in the same spot as the Christmas box, which is odd.
A strange thing happened during our move. The movers’ truck wasn’t big enough. They had to rent a separate U-Haul and the nearest one available was in San Diego. That was due to everyone moving out of California during COVID. People were not moving into the state, so U-Hauls were in short supply.
We left for Arizona and the movers promised to catch up with us the next day. We left before the movers had everything packed. Good thing we bought all the furniture in the casita — so we didn’t have to sleep on the floor!
Do you decorate for holidays? Do you keep it to a minimum or do you go all out?
Every year, for as long as I can remember during my married life, I’ve helped my husband with Holiday cards and small gifts of appreciation for his clients. I add that to my personal cards and friends and family gifts.
Frango mints hold a dear place in my heart. When I was in elementary school, Mom would drive me to the city (Seattle) for back-to-school shopping at Frederick & Nelson’s, an old fashioned department store. Frederick’s had an amazing toy section, books, clothing, even a Steuben glass room and a whole floor of fabrics, patterns and notions. We’d have lunch at the counter in the basement and after lunch, Mom would buy me a single Frango mint.
When I have a Frango mint, I remember Mom.
For the past years, I’ve mailed out Frangos to my husband’s clients. It’s quite a project and I’m pleased that over our quiet Thanksgiving weekend I got started.
I enjoyed when my daughter was in high school and helped me with this project because two hands are better than one!
I’ll never forget one year in the Palm Springs post office, when the postal worker asked me to re-label my stack of Frango Mints to save money on mailing. My daughter and I wrote new labels as fast as we could, and the postal worker was ringing them up and punching into her computer. We actually had teamwork going and it didn’t slow down the process at all for those waiting behind us. It looked like it did — because of us filling out new labels — but in reality it took no more time. The postal worker was moving as fast as she could and she hadn’t caught up to our new labeling.
But the comments and cursing I heard that day! My daughter had my back and defended us loudly to those behind us. I was afraid one impatient person was going to come to blows with us. Or my daughter would get into a fight defending me.
I’ve made friends with our postal workers in Carefree (like I did for 30 years in Palm Springs) and gave them their own box of Frangos. This will be my third year of overwhelming the small Carefree post office with packages. They’ve told me to never come in on Mondays and what hours are best. I’ve also learned to come in on multiple days with no more than ten to a dozen boxes. It may take a few more trips, but I understand how people in line get annoyed at having to wait.
I’ve never had a bad experience with a postal worker. Just the people waiting behind me. I’ve also found people in Carefree are happier and more patient than the Palm Springs customers.
Thankfully, gift giving in our family has gotten smaller and easier. It’s spending time together that’s most important. I can’t wait for Christmas this year with our kids coming to our home for the first time to celebrate. The past few years, we’ve rented a place in Palm Springs or Santa Barbara to be together.
So what are Frangos?
